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Here’s a major announcement from ICE, I’ll be sharing my thoughts on this and what effect if any I think it will have on this site in awhile.

ICE News – The Crown is Dead, Long Live the Crown!
1 January 2011, 10:07 pm
Iron Crown Fans:
First, an apology – For too long, resources have been woefully short to fully meet product and service quality as promised to you, our faithful and patient customers. It’s not that our licensee, Mjolnir LLC, run by Bruce and Heike, didn’t have the best of intentions – they did. But they were beset by difficult market conditions in the gaming industry which I’m sure you are all aware of, and combined with the lack of resources, Mjolnir were unable to fully meet your needs. While it is not our place to manage this situation and we are limited in doing so under the license agreement with Mjolnir, we did provide extreme flexibility in terms of foregoing a substantial amount of royalties which provided cash support for Mjolnir LLC to correct this situation, to no avail.

When Aurigas Aldebaron LLC first acquired Iron Crown Enterprises from bankruptcy, it was with the sole intention of supporting a product loved by many, a contender to rival D&D in the 1980’s, a game company known for its exciting criticals and its “true to art” creation of the first Middle Earth -based role playing games. Sure, I hoped to make a little money on it, but really I just wanted, like all role players at one time or another, to write/work/own a game company. I figured it would eventually provide the perfect outlet for retirement from my day job.

We have worked with Mjolnir since that time, and though there were ups and downs, we appreciate the contribution they made to the further development of ICE products.

It is time, however, for a new chapter to begin.

As such, I am pleased to announce some changes at Iron Crown Enterprises. Firstly, Aurigas Aldebaron and its representatives will manage the website and forums. In addition, we plan to manage more actively the sales and marketing of our products, as well as more closely oversee execution of product development and quality, and product deliverability by our licensees. Yes, all products will still be licensed out to creative organizations and as such, we will still only have limited control over the development of the systems and settings (and that’s a good thing to as we are not game creation and development professionals). But the terms of our agreement with our licensees will ensure better performance, and we think that with the freelancing methods’ fully variable cost structure to be employed by Guild Companion, we solve a critical problem plaguing our business – lack of resources – and instead increase the amount of resources brought to bear on the whole of product creation, production and delivery.

You will find that the ICE website will continue to be a central hub for all things Iron Crown. You will find links on the ICE website directing you to our licensee sites and to where you can purchase ICE items in PDF or print-on-demand physical copies. ICE will no longer operate its own store. You will be able to find announcements and product advertisements for all ICE products on the central ICE website.

We also expect there will be some growing pains and we will make some mistakes along the way – please forgive us and we hope we will get things corrected quickly. At the same time, since this is a new way of operating, we look forward to your suggestions.

As you can see, a lot of things are changing, but many things will stay the same. You shouldn’t expect a complete overhaul of the website, or major changes to the forum rules, but we do hope you eventually see some big improvements in product releases, product quality and deliverability.

In fact, we really view this as the next generation of game company management. We are attempting to cut out the middlemen, or as many of the layers as possible in getting the creative aspect of the game to the people that play it. We want to eliminate central management and distribution as much as possible. If ICE can support game developers through some marketing and web-support, these developers can do what they do best, manage their own small expenses and sell via pdf and print-on-demand, eliminating upfront and fixed costs, which lowers risk and allows for more game product creation. It also ensures that if people work on a product, they get paid from the source upon a sale.

We are also pleased to announce that Guild Companion Publications will be the licensee for our HARP, Rolemaster, Spacemaster and Cyberspace game systems, and, as they do now, be the licensee of the Shadow World background This includes the re-involvement of Terry Amthor, the creator of Shadow World, so we expect big things! . In addition, they will take over management of Cyradon setting as well.

ICEVerse as a project is expected to continue, which means RM and HARP fans will have access to a virtual table top program, and hopefully into full-fledged computer games.

We are currently in discussions on Bladestorm and the Silent Death game system license Combat Express, However nothing is finalized and we are looking for interest on this license by other parties.

We are in discussion with third parties with some of our properties and are currently seeking interested parties to manage the pirates-based Run out the Guns! and Guild Companion will be looking for help on the Cyberspace systems as well.

We plan to hold an online Q&A session in the near future and will advise you on the details of this in the near future.

That’s all for now. Thanks in advance for your continued patience and support.

Have you got a question about a rule in Rolemaster, Spacemaster, HARP or any of ICE’s other games?
Have you got an idea for an Adventure or a Campaign that you’d like to share with others?
Have you got a topic that you’d like to discuss with other players?
The ICE Forums are the perfect place to get in touch with other ICE players and ICE staff members.The Official ICE Forums

Aurigas Aldebaron LLC, Mjolnir LLC dba Iron Crown Enterprises, and Guild Companion Publications Limited are pleased to announce that they have agreed in principle that the entirety of the Shadow World product line will be transferred from Mjolnir LLC to Guild Companion Publications Limited, who will be responsible for the publication of all existing and all future Shadow World materials.

Terry Amthor, creator of the Shadow World setting, said “I have really enjoyed working with Nicholas at Guild Companion Publications Limited on scenarios for the Guild Adventurer series and on my recent sourcebook, The Land of Xa-ar and Northern Saralis. These experiences convinced me that the time was right to move Shadow World officially to a new home. I approached Aurigas Aldebaron LLC and they were in complete agreement with me. Nicholas and I have discussed many future projects that we can and will be doing together. As far as I am concerned, this is the best thing to happen to Shadow World since I was publishing as Eidolon Studios – and this time, I don’t have to spend my weekends printing the books myself!”

Nicholas HM Caldwell, Director of Guild Companion Publications Ltd, said: “This IP transition makes de jure the de facto state of affairs that has been the case for several years now; most importantly, it means that we can give Terry free rein to develop Shadow World in the breadth and depth that it deserves. It also means that we will be able to solicit Shadow World submissions from fans, and once they have been vetted by Terry for adherence to the evolving and growing canon of material, publish those as additional material. As part of our commitment to supporting both major versions of Rolemaster (RM2/Classic and RMSS/FRP), all future Shadow World products will be dual-statted, and we will be adding RMSS/FRP material to existing products as quickly as we can as part of the reformatting process to make them suitable for our print-on-demand service”

The first new Shadow World product from Guild Companion Publications Ltd will be “The Shadow World Player’s Guide – The World“. This will be followed in due course by “Eyes of Stone“, an adventure set in Emer to be published in the fourth issue of The Guild Adventurer, and Terry’s next regional sourcebook, Emer III: The Southeast. Look for more details on upcoming Shadow World projects and how Shadow World fans can become involved in the new world order for Kulthea on the Guild Companion and ICE forums.

About Shadow World

A planet hangs on the threshold between Order and Chaos, a focus of strange powers and portals to alien dimensions. Sorcery clashes with ancient technology while capricious deities make war and the Dragonlords walk as men. Against them all rises the Unlife, a force whose dark servants seek the destruction of all that lives…
This is the Shadow World, a complete high-fantasy setting for Rolemaster originally created by Terry Amthor by the 1980s and developed further primarily by him ever since.

Shadow World is a registered trademark of Terry Kevin Amthor.

About Guild Companion Publications Limited

Guild Companion Publications Limited is the commercial arm of the Guild Companion magazine (www.guildcompanion.com) and publishes HARP SF and now Shadow World products under direct license from Aurigas Aldebaron LLC and Rolemaster, HARP, and Spacemaster products under license from Mjolnir LLC dba Iron Crown Enterprises and Aurigas Aldebaron LLC. Its commercial products are available on http://guild.ironcrown.com, www.rpgnow.com and www.yourgamesnow.com

About Aurigas Aldebaron LLC and Iron Crown Enterprises
Originally founded in 1980, Iron Crown Enterprises produced and sold worldwide a variety of highly-successful original fantasy and science fiction role playing and table-top games. In December 2001 Aurigas Aldebaron, LLC purchased the corporate assets and licensed Mjolnir LLC dba Iron Crown Enterprises to continue the tradition of creating highly sought-after adventure games. ICE’s current game lines includes Rolemaster Fantasy Role Playing, Spacemaster Science Fiction RPG, HARP, and the Silent Death table-top miniatures game.

I’ve now converted the Cyberspace, Loremaster and MERP product pages and most of the HARP product pages over to the database. I’ve also upgraded most of the Cover Images for the MERP First and Second edition pages.

Mjolnir LLC dba Iron Crown Enterprises and Guild Companion Publications Limited are pleased to announce that they have agreed in principle that HARP SciFi and HARP SF Xtreme will be transferred from Mjolnir LLC to Guild Companion Publications Limited, who will bring both products to final pdf and print publication.

Bruce Neidlinger, CEO of Mjolnir, said: “Due to other ongoing projects Mjolnir has been unable to give HARP SciFi and HARP SF Xtreme the care and attention both products deserve to bring them to final publication. This has been as much a source of consternation to us as it has been to the fans who have been patiently waiting for both products. When Nicholas came to us with a proposal to transfer HARP SciFi and HARP SF Xtreme over to GCP Ltd, it was an offer that we could not refuse. Nicholas is the author of both products and will take extremely good care of them. With the transfer, Mjolnir will be better able to focus on its other upcoming projects and ensure that all fans of ICE games have new products to entertain them”.

Nicholas HM Caldwell, Director of Guild Companion Publications Limited, said: “Role-playing games are meant to be played, and the delays to final publication with HARP SciFi and HARP SF Xtreme meant that the fans were unable to play with the full set of rules. I have an elite team already working on the art, the layout and final polishing of both books. We will still be publishing the rules as two separate (but linked) volumes and the intention is to publish both volumes (HARP SciFi and HARP SF Xtreme) simultaneously. Both products will be available in 2010 in both pdf and print format. Look for more news on the Guild Companion and ICE forums.”

Guild Companion Publications Limited will be honouring the free upgrades to final pdf versions to which purchasers of the public beta and gamma pdfs are entitled. The gamma version of HARP SciFi will be withdrawn from sale with immediate effect.

About Guild Companion Publications Limited
Guild Companion Publications Limited is the commercial arm of the Guild Companion magazine (www.guildcompanion.com) and publishes Rolemaster, HARP, Spacemaster, and Shadow World products under license from Mjolnir LLC dba Iron Crown Enterprises and Aurigas Aldebaron LLC. Its commercial products are available on http://guild.ironcrown.com, www.rpgnow.com and www.yourgamesnow.com

About Iron Crown Enterprises
Originally founded in 1980, Iron Crown Enterprises produced and sold worldwide a variety of highly-successful original fantasy and science fiction role playing and table-top games. In December 2001 Aurigas Aldebaron, LLC purchased the corporate assets and licensed Mjolnir LLC dba Iron Crown Enterprises to continue the tradition of creating highly sought-after adventure games. ICE’s current game lines includes Rolemaster Fantasy Role Playing, Spacemaster Science Fiction RPG, Shadow World, HARP, and the Silent Death table-top miniatures game.

I’ve now added the information for the Rolemaster Classic products to the database for the individual product pages. Made a few minor corrections and additions to some of the other Rolemaster pages as well.

I’ve started what will probably be a long process of switching the individual detailed product pages from being static pages to being dynamic database driven pages. Which means copying all the information from the individual static pages into the database.
So far have the First and Second Edition Rolemaster pages done.